


Hounds of Love

by twelfthriver



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Backstory, Developing Relationship, F/F, Road Trips, Romance, Verbal Abuse, angst but also fluff (i promise), holtz had dogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-23 14:02:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8330560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twelfthriver/pseuds/twelfthriver
Summary: Who exactly is Erin Gilbert after she's saved the city? Why is her indecently attractive co-worker- who Erin may or may not have *feelings* for- acting strangely (or at least stranger than usual)? And what on earth this mystery road trip all about?orErin and Holtz go on a road trip to pick up Holtz’ ghost dogs.





	1. Patsy

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know what this fic is guys, but i hope you like

 

_**Patsy** _

 

Jillian is thirteen and hyperventilating into the elbow of her jean jacket when a strange and wonderful thing happens.

It starts out as just a regular bad morning- a particularly nasty eruption of the tension brewing in number 15 Tarwin Street for certain- but nothing that hasn’t happened before. She’s a lazy bitch because she forgot to put the washing out for three weeks in a row, and the trash hasn’t been emptied this morning, _again_. Rich wouldn’t mind Jillian’s messing about with electronics or guitars or radios or language books so much if any of it were actually reflected in her grades, but it isn’t, because dammit she’s just like her _mother_. **Fuck** , why can’t his daughter just grow up and be responsible?

Jillian shifts awkwardly on the edge of her seat at the kitchen table where her breakfast sits untouched. The fruit-loops in her Wile E. Coyote bowl are bleeding rainbow plumes into the milk. Her whole body feels like a live-wire, and the words all start to blur together like her blood-brain barrier is arresting the flow of language and not just toxins, so that sounds can’t enter right now to be processed.

_Is she even listening to him?_

The question is sharp and it pierces the seal. Swallowing thickly as she tries to regulate her breathing, Jillian brings her sleeve up to wipe the snot from her nose, and she can feel her tear ducts revving up again. And that’s when the **thing** happens.

She can sense the shift instantly, and so can the yelling man who happens to be her father. Her ears might have popped but she’s not sure because her whole head feels heavy and messy from crying so hard. Like the changing wind has sealed it in wax, her Dad’s face is frozen mid-contortion, a frightening half-grimace. Reality snaps around them, and it’s as though the moment itself is an air bubble trapped in synovial fluid.

But then it’s over just as quickly, and now Richard Holtzmann is dashing from where he stands at the table, headed towards the sink where he bends over to let tap water gush over a bloody tear that’s materialized on his forearm. A stunned silence fills the room, broken only by the sound of running water, and Jillian's quieting breath.

Phone calls are made. They can't reach her Mom because she's at work right now, and emergency instructs Rich over the phone to use a towel to stem the bleeding. Jillian is sent to school, Rich goes to the hospital.

 

 

Jillian scuffs her boots along the gravel driveway as the sun begins to set. Coming back home on nights like this generally makes her nauseous- but she's particularly uncertain _now_ because of the weird, so-far unexplainable occurrence in the kitchen.

What made the air buzz like that?

Would it happen again?

Did invisible, bloodthirsty aliens live in their coffee pot?

The injury itself wasn't her fault, but she guesses the lead up to it was. Trying to imagine whether she could feasibly be blamed for the wound, Jillian seriously considers for a moment the possibility of having supernatural gifts like the kids in YA novels, and that her potential preternatural telekinetic skills might be of some value to the government. She's thirteen years old and has seen every X-Files episode- she's young enough to not realize why she finds Dana Scully so fascinating, and also to truly believe that anything is possible.  _Telekinetic abilities would actually be kinda awesome..._

 **[ aside:** eventually, long after Holtzmann has had enough time to figure out the crotch-centric origin of her Dana Scully feelings (hint: it doesn't take her much longer), she will also come to realize that she's _always_ going to be young enough to truly believe that anything is possible **]**

Jillian needn't have worried quite so much that evening though, because true to form, not a word is said about the incident when she gets home- the household simmers with only its regular level of unease, the highly charged presence from that morning evaporated.  **[** and, most importantly, there do not appear to be any aliens in the coffee pot when she checks **]**. Rich Holtzmann nurses a beer in front of the television, his injured arm wrapped in a thick, white bandage. He gives her a perfunctory nod when he sees her quietly shuffle the trash out of the house. 

 

 

In her room that night, Jillian slumps on her bed, pondering the events of the day. She is dying to know what her father has made of the incident, what the doctors at the hospital said to him- but the terse silence made it beyond clear that this was going to be one of those Things of which they Did Not Speak. Her Mom is working a night shift, which means she can't volley her with questions either. She's lonely.

Gradually, the flurry of the day has settled into a dull, heavy sadness in her gut, so Jillian decides to do her best to make anger take up residence there instead **[** she'd picked up this particular technique early in life, and would spend time un-learning it later. she would spend time un-learning a lot of things later. **]** \- but as she reaches for the cardboard box stocked messily with her well-loved tapes and begins scanning the song titles for something suitably vitriolic, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. 

Curly blonde hair that she doesn't know what to do with, check. Strong, straight nose, check. Rabbit teeth, check.   _Just like her mother._ Looking down at the assortment of tapes, she chooses a different one than originally intended, slotting it into her cassette player with a satisfying _click_.

Jillian always makes sure to use headphones at night, when she blasts her music and lets the lyrics sear themselves into her skull.

_I got a new fire burnin' in my eyes, lightin' up the darkness, movin' like a meteorite. All fired up!_

She's been told once or twice that she's a 'loud dancer'- on nights like this, Jillian tries to dance quietly. Maybe, if she's careful, she can stop the flow of electricity from leaking out of her every pore. Maybe one day she wont need to, and she'll be able to dance as loudly as she wants, whenever she wants. Just not yet.

 

As her head hits the pillow, Jillian promises herself this: things will be okay in a few days, she'll fix it somehow. She'll fix herself somehow. And at least now she has an interesting puzzle to solve.

 

* * *

 

In a few days the white bandage comes off, and a little thrill shimmies up Jillian’s spine when she sees the raw wound, because the solution finally hits her. 

After spending some time in the paranormal section of the local library, Jillian had found a slim, recent publication which listed eyewitness reports of encounters with 'spectral entities'. It had been squished between several disintegrating volumes about Wicca and dowsing, and had given her a lot to think about. Reports of strange scents and sensations, ears popping and aggressive spirits had all matched up with what she'd seen and experienced.

But the red punctures that trace out an ellipse on Richard Holtzmann's arm, forming an unmistakable bite mark, seal the deal.  Jillian is sure now that she  _knows_  what- _who_ snapped at Rich Holtzmann's arm, and why.

She has to test her theory, and she knows what to do.

 

As quickly as she can, Jillian makes a trip to the butcher, where she buys as many off-cuts as Freddy will give her for the $8.50 she amassed in change by rummaging through every backpack and pair of pants that she's ever owned. Back home, determined, ready, and supplies in hand, Jillian dashes out past the creaky wooden fence marking the perimeter of their yard, and into the grassy field which stretches out behind the house before being swallowed by a thick line of trees. Jillian slows when she reaches the right patch in the grass, hovering beside the mound where she and her parents had buried Pat Benatar, their twelve year old Doberman, just two weeks prior. Jillian had bawled for three days straight, but Patsy was an old dog, and there was nothing the vet could do.

 

 _This is nuts_ , Jillian thinks, but _of course._

She pulls a big, beaten-up, blue dog bowl out of her backpack, and fills it with the raw meat, mixing in some of the treats she'd found left over in the pantry.

“Thanks Patsy” she says, before placing her gift with flourish over the still fresh soil.

She waits for a moment, nothing.

And then, just as she begins to deflate, a warm crackle ripples through the clean air, and Jillian swears in that moment she can feel a familiar snout, solid and protective, ghosting beneath her fingers as the grass rustles around her.

She grins wide, "You're such a good girl Patsy, you've still got my back, huh?"

 

Eventually she’ll wander back to the house- there's a report she guesses she should write if only to spare herself the constipated-crow expression Mrs. Clifford's face will assume if she shows up to class without it- but she can't quite muster the momentum yet. She’d started reading this super cool book about black holes last night and gotten so lost in it that she only surfaced around 4:30 am and _damn why does that always happen?-_ so she’s kind of woozy from the no-sleep thing. Her Mom had always joked that she was too smart for her own good- "you're gonna have to work some day, Jilly, you can't zip through math class on your rocket ship forever". Amelia Holtzmann was definitely on to something with this advice, and Jillian is quietly becoming all too aware of it.

 

But for now, Jillian sits in the field by the mound and lets the happy, fuzzy feeling buzz over her skin. It's a beautiful day, and this little experiment in paranormal investigation has opened up a whole new realm for her imagination to explore. She pulls her trusty cassette player out of her pack, picks a song, and presses play. Jillian Holtzmann dances as loudly as she wants to, right here and now.

 _I knew it,_ she thinks. _I knew it._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the Kate Bush song 'Hounds of Love', it's great, you should give it a listen :)  
> The song that fetus Holtz listens to is 'All Fired Up' by Pat Benatar. 
> 
> So I've barely written any fic before, but this movie and fandom have made me to want to give it a go. This is also sort-of my take on an ADHD Holtz- which I don't necessarily headcannon movie Holtz as having, but in this fic I'm playing a little with what that might look like.
> 
> Even though the first chapter is all Holtzmann backstory, there will be a lot of Erin later on. <3


	2. I Got Self-Esteem Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's catch up with the gang, shall we?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did not expect awkward erin to be so much fun to write
> 
> here is awkward erin for your enjoyment

  

**_I Got Self-Esteem Now_ **

 

 

The weeks that immediately preceded and followed Erin Gilbert’s total badass plunge into almost certain ectoplasmic-coated death to save her best friend were simultaneously some of the best and most confusing of her life.

 

 

_I did that!_

Her internal cheerleader yelled, doing a little version of the ghost-emoji dance.

 

Erin spent the first few days of the honeymoon period walking around with her chin held higher than even the time she was told by the Dean of Columbia University that her blouse was ‘better that day’, and that her most recent publication was ‘an improvement on her last’. It was a heady mixture, a beautiful haze of pride and relief. All the right types of feel-good hormones swam through her system, and her eyes lit up brighter than ever when she smiled.

 

_Ghosts are real!_

_I’m not a liar!_

_I’m a good friend TM! _

 

The cheerleader spun about, joyfully.

 

 

Erin began doing fun activities. Alone, and just because the urge struck her. 

Activities like wearing a skirt _without nylons_ to a bar one Saturday night, where she bought a drink for a stringy looking man in a business suit and lost spectacularly at a game of pool.

She finally picked up the phone, after allowing a string of calls to morph into increasingly frustrated and entitled sounding voice-mails, and told Phil to fuck off. ( _God, that was satisfying- she was gonna be saving THAT memory for when she needed it!_ )

She booked a centre, third row ticket to see the current production of _Cats_ (her favourite musical), before dining solo at a black-tie restaurant she had been itching to try. Erin ordered the lobster and it tasted like success. When she winked at the cute blonde waitress who brought her food over, the waitress winked back.

Erin took a Mandarin class, learned to make paella, attempted yoga.

 

_Nights like this_ , the physicist thought, returning home each evening with her nerves crackling like individual neon tubes, _are what life is about._

 

 

On the mornings which followed her private little jaunts, as sunlight crept over her pillowcase, edging its way along the fabric to kiss her nose, Erin would relish the secret, jittery feeling that tap danced across the inside of her chest. Having come to associate her admittedly tame outings with a whiff of something mildly scandalous (if only because she was undertaking them alone, and purely of her own volition), her steps would become springier as a by-product of the puzzled expression Abby would sometimes shoot her when she came in to work. Invoking her oldest friend's look of bemusement by striding into the firehouse and announcing around a wide yawn what a 'long night she'd just had' was fun, and it made Erin feel like a woman of mystery.

When Abby pressed her for details, Erin simply hummed contentedly and revealed little.

**[aside:** The look that Abby gave Erin was actually one of realizing that her friend of nearly 30 years (if you didn’t count ‘The Abandonment’) had become the human equivalent of the peacock spider, waving its lanky grey limbs about in an adorable simulation of the YMCA **]**

As Holtz and Patty speculated with ever increasing gusto about the events of her evenings **[** they had gone from _‘Erin is gettin’ herself some’-_ Patty, to _‘Erin is the Dark Knight’-_ Holtz **]** , the corners of Erin’s mouth twitched upward, but her eyes remained on the whiteboard in front of her. Her hand fluid as it painted blue numbers, letters, swooping and rising with ease.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Erin was not a _totally_ new woman of course- she still blushed when Holtz locked eyes with her from across the lab and commenced pelvic-thrusting to Duran Duran- but now, to Patty and Abby’s astonishment and to Holtz’ delight (but also astonishment), Erin _**joined in.** _

The Kevin crush had gone up in a medium-poof, occurring somewhere in between the realization that Kevin was essentially a giant Labrador- and when Erin finally conceded that the **_waves_** of EMR which steadily rolled off of Jillian Holtzmann- when she worked on improving their proton packs, whooped triumphantly after a bust, when she danced like _Erin_ was watching, or messily licked Dorito dust off her fingers (okay, when Holtzmann did just about _anything_ really)- were impossible for her to ignore.

For the time being however, this revelation about her feelings towards the engineer floated only softly within her peripheral view- while Erin Gilbert's evolving relationship with Erin Gilbert flared brightly, hogging centre stage.

So she blushed, she joined in, she thrust her hips emphatically to ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’, but Erin didn’t think too hard about the way her whole body smiled when Holtz called her ‘hot-stuff’.

 

Glass surfaces that forever begged to be pushed when they were really meant to be pulled had always posed a (literal) obstacle to Erin.

This innate lack of physical coordination had also  **not** changed, and was the reason for that first and only yoga class ending with a bag of frozen peas clutched to her colourfully bruised shoulder. The team’s Ghostbusting skills as a whole though, had gone up a notch. Patty, in particular, could wield the new and improved Ghost-chipper to the effect of looking like every malevolent spirit’s worst nightmare. If anyone were filming their busts, a good chunk of the highlight reel would involve Patty saving someone’s ass in the nick of time, as she snuck up behind whatever spectral Dodo or undead accountant was attacking her friend and turned the chipper on full blast.

**[** Holtz had LOVED the spectral Dodo- _“Can’t we keep it, you guys?”_ \-  “Holtzy, that thing almost pecked your tit off!”- _“Well, I have **two**...”_ **]**

 

They all teased Patty affectionately when they noticed that post high-profile busts she’d begun to attract a larger gaggle of young women vying for autographs and selfies than even Holtzmann did. Patty drew a broader crowd in general, too- possessing a social vibrancy to match her jewellery and colourful outfits, she was comfortable joking with just about anyone.

Holtzmann had made it pretty clear that she was just about the ladies. Sure, she was polite, and she would sign some guy’s cast or poster if asked to- but her gaze would always drift past them, and over to the shy girl offering a handwritten letter, who she would hug. Or, she would plonk herself down next to an excited seven year old wearing overalls, while Abby talked business with the press or a client, and listen intently, as the kid told Holtz all about her science project. Generally, the engineer eagerly reciprocated the flirting directed towards her by the more confident women- but Erin somehow got the sense that, despite being a raging flirt in 'real life', Holtzmann didn't shoot finger-guns or moonwalk or wink at these girls out of any real desire to woo them into bed with her celebrity. She had plenty of opportunity to do so, but as far as Erin was aware, Holtz didn't take it.

 

Erin got slimed a little less, which was nice. On those occasions she’d swagger over to the clients afterward.

“You have any more trouble with spectral entities, you know who to call”, she assured the lady at the Walmart counter, after their most recent gig,

“We’re the Ghostbusters- G for _g_ round-breaking, _g_ allant, _g_ ame-changing…”

**[** ‘gauche’ Patty murmured to Abby when the second-hand embarrassment became too much, ‘grandiose’ Abby stage-whispered back. Holtz, who didn’t notice the others’ gentle ribbing and just thought they were offering up G for Ghostbuster adjectives, loudly added ‘gay’ **]**

Judy, who had phoned in about a ghost which had developed the habit of jumping out at people from the ice cream freezers, politely accepted the glossy business card (a large stack of these had just rolled off the press, courtesy of Kevin).

As they turned to leave the Walmart ghost-free, but also the supermarket equivalent of a hotel room let out to a metal band (i.e. totally trashed)- Holtz leant over the microphone at the checkout: “Clean-up on aisles 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8….actually the whole store, sorry guys, ice cream monsters don’t quit!”

The canary-bespectacled ghostbuster reached out and patted the arm of the baffled employee, saying “I’ve _ALWAYS_ wanted to do that” with so much sincerity that Judy (who took her job very seriously) just didn’t have it in her to be annoyed at the breach of Walmart’s microphone-operation protocol.

 

 

 

As she sat on the roof of the firehouse that night with her family around her- Abby, Patty, and Holtz, all asleep on the picnic blanket, Erin looked up. The sky was translucent, so despite the light pollution, Erin saw stars, and the rush of the previous weeks seemed to come to a stand-still as she observed them. 

She felt quiet. It was as though the she were suspended, motionless and in silent conversation with the heavens.

An acute awareness came over her that everything in her field of vision, the stars, the giant rock she was sitting on- all of it- was part of a universe hurtling itself outward at that very moment. To the physicist, the swelling motion of the universe felt somehow analogous her own sense of expansion, her feelings of surging violently outward, ever since she realized she _could_ \- _“You know, guys, I think we could really do this! We can become the first scientists to prove the existence of the paranormal!"_ The time which followed that moment had been fast, intense, and magical.

Widely accepted as a plausible scenario, was the theory that everything might eventually reach a critical point whereafter the countless, far-flung galaxies would collapse inward, flying past their old addresses on their way back in, in, in.

 

If a logical follow-on from her parallel became apparent to Erin Gilbert, she did not let it trouble her that night.

 

Abby could be heard stirring beside her. The two of them had plans for the next day- an afternoon spent at their favourite café, in a brainstorming session for the sequel to _Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively_ , and Erin couldn’t wait.

To her right, Patty still slept soundly on the deck chair, a shiny new book about the history of the Arctic resting on her lap. Erin assumed this purchase had been inspired by the ice cream monster.

Finally, her attention drifted over to _Holtz,_ who at that moment was drooling on the scratchy picnic rug, and lingered there.

 

 

_Nights like this_ , Erin thought, _nights like **this** ,_ _are what life is about._

 

 

 

 

Over on the rug, Holtzmann cracked an eye open, and stared straight back at Erin.

"Hey there, hot-stuff"

_Shit._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is the peacock spider, erin's spirit animal, getting its groove on (maybe don't watch if you are deathly afraid of spiders, but i swear its adorable): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYIUFEQeh3g


	3. Escape Velocity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> escape velocity:  
> (noun)
> 
> the mimimum velocity an object must reach to in order to escape from the gravitational attraction of a massive body

 

**_Escape Velocity_ **

 

 

Adolescence is a haze of hot summers and wire stripping.

Its circuit boards littering the floor, yelling, tears soaking through her pillowcase. Its paint and grease and peeling at scabs on Jillian’s knuckles as she steals surreptitious glances at Ms. Sylvia, the young, bright-toothed art teacher.

It’s time spent alone, television, and the lack of ability to execute the kind of interpersonal synergy from which friendships emerge.

She gets braces to help with her rabbit-teeth situation, but Jillian’s inherited, unruly hair continues to elude her. Neither of these things bother her much though, because Jillian would rather not look sexy.

 

 

When she’s in ninth grade, Jillian places second in the science fair with a submission she whipped up in just three days- ok, cobbled together in three days from several unfinished contraptions, artfully selected from her bedroom graveyard of hobby-projects.

 **[** Holtzmann would forever maintain that envisioning the way in which a shonky alarm system, a pressure sensitive safe, some lasers, bear traps, and sundry bits and bobs could do the hanky-panky to produce a booby-trap of Indiana Jones proportions (tee-hee, booby-trap!) was a mad flash of genius. Genius which should have placed higher than Bobby Calvin’s better planned (if she’s honest), but _boring_ winning entry. **]**

The prize is a cheque for $150, but the glowing praise Jillian receives from her parents is even better. They tell her she can choose whatever she wants for dinner that night, and she picks creamy pasta with mushrooms, scooping a big wallop of it into her bowl.

 

Jillian’s heart sinks all the way down to her toes as she watches the pride wash out of her mother’s face upon opening her report card that same week, to see the big black ‘C’ where her anticipated stellar science grade should have been.

 

“Her primary report wasn’t submitted in time,” Mr. Reynolds informs her mother, his voice low and smooth, like it’s become worn from keeping large groups of teenagers in line for years and can no longer be compelled to energetic conversation.

“Jillian is a bright girl- and to be honest, I think she has unlimited potential, say, in a field like engineering or maybe chemistry if only she applied herself. But unfortunately, Mrs. Holtzmann, I cannot mark work that isn’t there.”

 

 

 

After her encounter with Patsy in the grassy field, Jillian would return to the spot every few days, and then only every few months before eventually stopping. She found she couldn't count on her canine friend to appear with any kind of predictability- and now she doesn’t feel the steady, comforting presence of the ghostly dog, except on rare occasions. She'll be walking late at night sometimes, hopeful that her leather jacket will make her either invisible or intimidating enough to ward off trouble- and it’s then that she’ll begin to feel the atmosphere bubble around her, and sense a protective, Doberman-shaped spirit flanking her along the still pavement.

The mystery of how any of this is possible remains exactly that, and even after squeezing out as much knowledge about the paranormal as she can, from anywhere she can, Jillian is stumped. The library shelves she ransacked contained little in the way of useful information, and it turns out that few researchers consider the scientific study of ghosts worthwhile.

 

 

When Amelia Holtzmann dies two weeks after Jillian’s seventeenth birthday, she curls up in the cool, soft sheets of her Mom’s bed and hopes to desperately that what happened with Patsy could happen now, too. Hopes to feel a voice hum in her ear or for warm arms to wrap themselves around her shoulder.

They don’t.

 

 

There are tapes that sink towards the bottom of Jillian’s collection, and go untouched for years. She can’t dance to them anymore, and just looking at the familiar, loopy hand some of the titles are written in makes her insides feel hollow.

 

 

 

College is a welcome and hotly anticipated reprieve. It’s not her dream school, but it doesn’t matter, because everything is new and exciting. She’s away from home, from Richard Holtzmann, from the tedium of routine, she’s even away from Bobby fucking Calvin **[** who went to MIT **]**.

Jillian can't say with absolute certainty what she wants to do with the rest of her life, but that doesn’t matter either, because the world is fascinating and boundless.

She does know that she's great at science, and loves using her hands- engineering has always been the obvious choice **[** although she briefly contemplated art school **]**. Jillian wants to interact with the jigsaw-puzzle universe in a tangible way, and it's this thought- of building her own toys designed to get all up in its mysterious face- that truly excites her.

 

Her time a blurs into a miasma of faces and smells and drinks and late nights. College is frenzy of invention, but not in the same sense as the frenzy from which her 3:00 AM electronic brainchildren used to spring (now all packed in their brown banana boxes, resting along the wall of her dorm).

It’s different now, because Jillian Holtzmann thinks she’s inventing _herself_.

 

 

 

She’s thudded along on academic probation for a whole year when an associate dean wearing shiny silver spectacles waves her hand dismissively, and Jillian slinks from her office.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When she leaves college without any degree to show for it, Jillian’s mind feels like a boulder that sinks her body to the bottom of a well. Except the bottom of the well is the faded red couch in her half-brother’s basement, and she doesn’t want to get off of it. She barely knows Josh- he’s older, married and a new father to a baby boy, but he lets her stay in his home out of sentiment for their shared, dead mother.

Jillian is happy about the lack of windows in the basement because their absence allows no daylight to enter the dank space. She sleeps a lot, and she works an evening telemarketing shift during which she telephones people who probably have something better to do than listen to her half-hearted attempts to sell them car insurance. She can't bring herself to look at, let alone touch any of her tools, so they sit unpacked along with any other possessions that remind her of herself too much. Everything else gets strewn across the floor.

Her days involve more hours than she wants to think about spent consuming beer and cold pizza in front of the artificial glare of an old Dell PC. **[** Jillian is forced to lay off the pizza when her sweatpants become uncomfortably tight, as the prospect of having to leave the solace of the couch to acquire new clothing, and grunt acknowledgement at helpful shop assistants is more unappealing than being pizza-less **]**.

Looking over the messy landscape of her life in confusion, Jillian tries not to think about what comes next.

 

 

Everything hurts right now, the blood flows thick and slow through her limbs, and her eyes force themselves shut.

 

 

 

 

Her fingers are stiff from the early Saturday chill when Jillian slips furtively into the upstairs laundry to wrest her odd mix of socks and graphic tees from the dryer, and stops in her tracks upon seeing a bun of tightly knotted red hair poking out of the washing cupboard.

Jillian feels awkward intruding in an almost-stranger’s house, and knows that Rachel, Josh’s wife, is uncomfortable with her presence. This anxiety, thrown in with the fact that she’s taken maybe one shower this week and desperately needs to change her underwear for hygiene’s sake, causes her to abort her laundry mission. _It can wait._

But before a hasty retreat can be executed, Rachel’s rifling ceases, and she emerges from the cupboard, new light-bulb in hand.

“Good Morning” she nods to Jillian, "I didn't think you'd be in here so early."

"Hi Rachel"

As Jillian gathers her clothes from the dryer, _might as well now_ , Rachel lingers and makes small talk- seemingly more to herself than to her sheepish house guest: something about Josh’s promotion, their favourite football team, her craft table. It's an uneasy kind of monologue.

 

As her shiny ballet flats clack over to the doorway, Rachel stops, hovers in the frame, and she turns around to look at Jillian again. Her lips have un-pursed themselves, and in the corners of her eyes, the fine suggestions of crow’s feet relax a little. It’s not an expression that she's seen from her before.

“You know Jillian…,” she begins, and pauses, as though she’s still not sure whether to say whatever comes next, and there’s a note in her voice which prompts Jillian to find the bundle of laundry in her hands intensely fascinating.

“I, uh… Now, I don’t know what you’re going through, and I don’t want to interfere, but you’re living in my basement and you barely seem to leave it. So I think…”

Jillian pretends that there’s something wrong with a zipper on one of her trouser legs.

“I went through a hard time a few years ago- I’d just moved to a new city and was having trouble at work,” Rachel continues, and even though her face has softened, her voice hasn't.

“I’d call my uncle every night, and tell him about all the things that were happening that I couldn’t change. He was good at listening, but I could tell he got frustrated sometimes. There was this story he told me, one of those times, and it really made me think.”

Rachel tells the story, and Jillian listens.

 

_ A Farmer and His Dog _

A wise old farmer sits on his front porch with his dog beside him, and the dog is whining. When the farmer’s young neighbour walks past the house, she hears the racket and asks “why is your dog yelping like that?”

“He’s sittin' on a nail”, the farmer replies.

“Well, why doesn’t he get off the nail then?”

The farmer sips slowly at his cup of tea, “Doesn’t hurt enough yet.”

 

When Rachel leaves to make breakfast, Jillian is still fiddling with the zipper, which she’s now broken for real, and she’s putting an Olympian effort into keeping her face neutral.  

It’s some weeks later, when Josh yells down the basement stairs that there’s a phone-call she needs to take, and the professionally sympathetic voice emitted from the receiver brings news of Richard Holtzmann’s fatal heart attack, that Jillian gets off the couch, and stays off. She tries very hard not to let the relief that pulses through the sadness make her feel like a terrible person.

 

 

 

Two dead parents mean Jillian has money for the first time in her life.

It’s not a lot of money. There was a reason her mother had taken up every shift she could in those last few years, coming home with bags under her eyes and watching mindless television, drifting off to sleep with wine glass still in hand. Thinking about those evenings calls to mind a picture Jillian saw once of images hidden at the bottoms of Greek wine receptacles, of soldiers riding dolphins over the wine dark sea. She hopes her mother’s red-wine dreams were like that.

 

It’s not a lot of money, but at twenty one years old it takes Jillian to Thailand. The dinosaur sites of Phu Wiang are interesting. Jillian discovers she likes cold noodles, and that Australian backpackers are rowdy. She feels anonymous, staying away from the nightlife party circuit which speeds like an ant mine through the streets of Bangkok. Plumes of white smoke hit her face as she stares at the Bodhisattvas.

The massive idols don’t stare back at her like she’d expected them to, they possess none of the coyness for which the Mona Lisa is famed; they stare _out_.

 

It’s not a lot of money, but when she returns to the States, Jillian can finally move her things out of Josh's basement.

 

Some months on, she sits picking at the ripped edge of her shirt on a sleek grey sofa in the waiting room of a doctors’ office. Following her instincts pays off, and the inexpressive man she’d waited to speak to hands her a prescription in about thirty minutes.

“Pretty textbook,” he says, seemingly ignorant of the way those words transform her from pumpkin to chariot on the spot,

“But girls with ADHD, and ‘gifted’ girls in particular, often go under the radar.”

 

 

The sky feels like it’s opening up in a whole new way, after she exits the pharmacy that afternoon, swallows her first Ritalin IR tablet, and begins to feel like Apollo- grasping the reins of her thoughts as they rise, and riding them across their arcs to where they set.

Holy fuck.

Thought gets followed by action, and it is so ridiculously simple that she doesn't know whether to laugh, cry, or both, and so she does neither.  

 

Jillian thinks she’ll probably be able to work now. And _boy_ , is Jillian Holtzmann ready to work.

 

 

 

After some bureaucratic frippery, she’s allowed to return to college.

  

It’s not nearly so easy, not nearly so instant as it seemed at first. The meds take some tinkering with, her habits still suck, and working, Jillian discovers, is _hard._ So yes, harnessing her attention still mostly feels like putting a cardigan on an octopus **[** like getting hit in the face over and over at a probably a pointless activity **]-**  but, slowly, surely, Jillian starts to breathe evenly.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jillian is messing about in a student-access lab after hours one evening, working on her special project. She’s not enrolled in the talented student stream that the project is meant for, _but I’m gonna do it anyway_.

Her actual classes are going great (meaning that she's showing up semi-consistently and has passed the majority of them), so why the hell not?

 

She’s so immersed in hammering out plans for her machine, that she doesn’t pick up on the presence of the intimidating, Amazon-tall woman in the lab with her until she’s standing right over Jillian’s table, reading all her measurements and commenting: “I think that's larger than it needs to be.”

“Oh,” Jillian assures her, so wrapped up in her project that the intrusion doesn’t even seem weird,

“That’s because I’m compensating for the excess heat generated by the adjacent chamber.”

Looking at the sketch to which Jillian directs her attention by using a half-eaten pringle as a pointer, the woman entertains a moment of mild, somehow thoughtful surprise.

“In that case, I think you’ll need make some adjustments _here_ , and _here._ ”

 

They discuss the finer points of Jillian’s design late into the night, until a yawn finally sneaks up on her before she can contain it. The time has flown by, and now the woman- who introduced herself as Dr. Rebecca Gorin- looks up at the clock on the wall, and remarks,

“Well, I’d better be getting home, Jillian. Beastie will be wondering where I’ve gotten to.”

Jillian she wishes Dr. Gorin would stay just a little longer. She’s hung on to every word that's left this woman’s mouth, and it's been _so fantastic_ to talk about her ideas with someone who wants to listen.

“We’ll meet back here at the same time next Thursday to go over the additional components we talked about. Dr. Limes will be pleased. As you know, she's overseeing the Talented Student Projects again this year, and I don’t think she’s seen one so promising for some time. ”

Oh.

It occurs to Jillian, that maybe she should inform Dr. Gorin that she’s not actually enrolled in the program- that she couldn't be, because apparently on the day the Flying Spaghetti Monster **[** praise his Noodliness **]** was dishing out prefrontal cortex, she’d done something to piss him off.

It occurs to her to ask who Beastie is, and what Dr. Gorin is doing here in the first place. Does she routinely haunt the labs at night, sneaking up upon random unsuspecting students and critiquing their work?

But before she can get her mouth moving in time with her brain to vocalise any of these thoughts, Dr. Gorin has exited Jillian’s evening just as swiftly as she’d entered it.

 

 

 

The universe is fascinating and boundless and mysterious, but of this, Jillian Holtzmann is certain:

Absolutely nothing within it will be capable of preventing her from being in that lab at 6:00 PM sharp next Thursday.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was difficult to write, and i'm still not happy with it. I was trying to weave a lot of things in there, and I wanted to stay in character, but still keep in mind how dramatically people grow in their teens and 20s. 
> 
> I said earlier that in this fic I was playing with the idea of what Holtz having adhd might look like- its not about being fun or quirky (though those are super fantastic qualities to have), its about having executive functions so shit they mess your life up if you don't do something about it. tbh i'm nervous about including these elements (though I know its a popular headcanon). I wanted to make it feel real, and not just thrown in there for colour. I hope I could deliver at least in that respect.
> 
> I don't know the exact origins of the Dog + nail story, but i first encountered it when i read 'The Art of Asking' by Amanda Palmer.  
> I also feel like Holtz would totally dig the church of the fsm, and def try do get her driver's licence pic taken wearing a colander.
> 
> <3


	4. 180 the Polarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin has an idea, and a complicated relationship with whiteboards.

 

**_180 the Polarity_ **

 

 

The Ghostbusters had settled into a lull.

 

It wasn't a bad lull.

 

Coming on the heels of some exhaustingly busy weeks of chasing delinquent spirits, the feeling of not having to frantically pull on coveralls in the middle of boiling spaghetti **[** there had been an incident **]** was a bit like sinking into a cool leather couch on a hot day- and in fact, on this particular Tuesday, for Erin Gilbert, it felt _exactly_ like that.

 

The only movement in the universe seemed to come from two sources.

A cool breeze emanated from a fan propped up on a stack of papers. It blew strands of reddish-brown hair out of the physicist's face, as she lounged on a comfy chair, which had spontaneously appeared one day on the uppermost floor of the firehouse- probably the spoils of a dumpster diving session. Across the room, the person who had no doubt procured this piece of furniture **[** and transported it upstairs in a shambolic operation involving Kevin and an almost-sprained ankle, which Erin was thankfully not witness to, _Property damage, Holtzmann!_ **]** , shimmied around a wooden workbench.

 

The heat slowed time to a syrupy pace, nearly stopping it altogether.

 

Erin registered the murmur of a tightening bolt here, the distant clang of a dropped blowtorch there, punctuating the stillness like an irregularly ticking clock. _That's a nice image for Holtz, isn't it? That endearingly erratic cuckoo-clock, the little pokey one Aunt Macy owned with the sparrows on it._

 

She'd begun the afternoon feeling frustratingly idle. Somewhere in between opening the firehouse door that morning, and walking into the kitchen to see Abby, Patty and Kevin seated at the table watching a compilation of videos featuring cats who were impressively skilled with cutlery, Erin had realized that today was not going to be a productive day at Ghostbusters HQ. It looked like she and Abby wouldn't be working on the new book.

On the bright side, it seemed Kevin might finally have an opportunity to do his job correctly, if only for the lack of phone calls. In the past week and a half, there had been only _one_ measly haunting - plus a case that turned out to be a man being pranked by his nephew, if that counted. Having rushed to a peak which strained the energies of the whole team, the number of ghost sightings had taken a definite down turn.

 

Nominally, Erin was doing paperwork, and the pile of documents on which her fan was perched would dubiously attest to this. She'd started filling out forms in avoidance of the whiteboard resting behind her- the loopy blue symbols blinking at her with the hint of a solution _just_ inaccessible, and thus _totally, infuriatingly_ inaccessible. Abby's urging that 'a day of watching cat videos once in a while never hurt anyone', and that they were all due a little down-time, was apparently rubbing off on her, though. 'Paperwork' had gradually morphed into an extended mid-day break.

 

The current decline in supernatural activity actually wasn't _too_ unusual. In their approximate seven months of ghostbusting experience, the team learned that spectral sightings generally came and went in waves **[** and there was probably an interesting scientific explanation for this **]**. The first time it happened and the number of calls thinned, Erin had spun into a panic about the possibility of their work having 'lost its perceived legitimacy', which resulted in several (unnecessary) attempts to contact the Mayor's office to justify the continued funding of their work, and a morning spent arguing with Patty about the professionalism of the team's social media presence **[** the most recent picture on the Ghostbuster's Instagram account at the time featured a ghost exuberantly ecto-projecting onto Holtzmann, captioned by the engineer, 'I think she's just happy to see me ;)' **]**.

 

Erin no longer let the ebb and flow of the spectral tide bother her too greatly, now that she knew there was a pattern to it.

Her stomach growled lightly, hopefully Abby and Patty would be back with their lunch soon. The air rumbled to life, almost in sympathy, as Holtzmann flicked the switch on the stereo, barely looking away from the retired containment unit she was pulling apart.

Erin's gaze slid over the scene.

The sleek high tech equipment resided in the cool basement lab, and this floor of the firehouse was instead reminiscent of the ramshackle décor of the original headquarters above Zhu's.

_I could really go for some Chinese food about now._

Holtzmann's tools, and machines in various stages of repair littered the greater part of the open space. Humming along to some boom-thump-zip rhythm rolling out from the speakers, the engineer toyed around with a screw holding together the compartment she was prying open.

Absorbed in the routine task, she paused, biting her tongue as she levered open the dead unit like it was a clam shell fished from the depths. She ogled at its contents for a second, satisfied, and nodded back into motion, grabbing a pair of pliers from the wall.

The song changed, some Bruno Mars track. Yellow light glinted off a pair of wire glasses frames, as every part of Holtzmann's body that was not currently touching something potentially nuclear lazily bobbed in time with the music. She smiled broadly. Erin couldn't help but notice the way Holtz seemed to put so much of her hips into her work. A thought bubbled up about the way this trait of the engineer's might play out in other contexts, and a spike of constriction ran through her body, settling somewhere in her lower half.

 

Erin sighed internally, it was one of those afternoons where she was a perv, apparently.

 

Sometimes, thoughts seem to fall into place of their own accord, as if in a magical game of Tetris where the pieces fit together perfectly without any effort from the player.

Maybe it was the pleasing way the sun washed through the window, alighting on metal scraps and lighting up the necessary receptors in Erin's brain. Maybe she was just getting into the song playing, allowing the beat to push gates of her thoughts around. Or perhaps the way that Holtzmann dived head first into a blackened metal compartment, causing her shirt to ride up and reveal the curved flesh of her hip, caused Erin to have a mild cerebral event.

However it happened, Erin found herself in the midst of one of those moments- engulfed in the kind of lassitude that makes it effortless and instant to connect the dots with your mind. To notice the way _this_ looks like _that_ ; to arrange the marks on the wall and spontaneously relate the fraying hem of your co-worker's oil and paint splattered shorts to the way the proton streams reacted unusually to a class V vapour you battled. To remember vividly how the beams began to unknit themselves as they brushed the spectral field.

 

"Hey Er, pass me the sdfjfhriu control, would'ya?"

Holtzmann called from inside the black box, where a too-many components, not enough limbs situation was happening.

Erin didn't respond.

"Hey, Hot-sdmfr, I'm all outta hands here,"

Assuming that with her face in the metal container, Erin hadn't heard her, Holtzmann tried to wiggle out of position without letting the clamp she was holding slip on the dial.

If the situation had been different, and she had seen Erin in that moment, Holtzmann would have witnessed an expression on her friend's face which conveyed an odd mix of extreme elation and indignation that ultimately read as the face of someone who had just reached the front of the washroom line.

This confusing expression was at first one of Erin calling to mind the image of all the whiteboards filled with blue symbols that had ever taunted her throughout her academic career, and then an expression of calling to mind an image of her punching those whiteboard's ugly faces. The whiteboard which she had abandoned that morning, in lieu of paperwork, stood behind her and remained nonplussed.

Holtzmann, meanwhile, had managed to extract her head from the box without the clamp moving.

"Glad you're enjoying the view n' all, buuuut until I check out this thing's pulse with that gizmo over there, I can't guarantee it won't try to fight back when I let go of this clamp- I'm thinking a lotta smoke inhalation."

As a minor part of Erin's consciousness processed this information, the larger part of it was gripped with the realization that all the problems which had been stalling her research suddenly made sense. She was having thoughts about the implications of situational polarity shifts in spectral energy fields that she'd never had before- and she would probably have to use a whole new packet of shiny blue pens to write them out.

This was shortly followed by another realization that she was staring and that Holtz was saying something. She blushed, reflexively.

Erin scrambled for the 'gizmo' and the wire cutters. Then she marched over and flipped the whiteboard on its axis. She grabbed a pen.

 

 

When Patty and Abby arrived with cheesesteaks and ice-packs, Erin was still scribbling and pacing. She appeared to be in the midst of interrogating a whiteboard, which was doing its best to look innocent. No one commented, they somehow got the impression that an interruption might be unwise.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo hey? It's been a while, this year has been weird for me, and I've been thinking about this fic again. Sorry? So I'm posting a short chapter to get back into the swing of things. I will get to the bits that I planned out, it's all leading somewhere :) 
> 
> 'That's What I Like' by Bruno Mars started playing on the radio when I was writing this, thus it's the second song that plays on Holtz' stereo. 
> 
> Posting is scary, let me know what you think- reading your reactions is the best part of writing <3


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